Another new feature we are going to do a few times a week is picking out several news stories a few times a week so Planetarians can comment on them. The stories will be taken from a broad spectrum of news from Politics to Science to help keep you informed and let you have your say on current events that affect us all.

Although the report of another failure at the LHC could spur concerns of a recurrence of more serious problems that recently shut the system down for more than a year, comments posted to the lhcportal.com forum indicated that the failed 18-kilovolt circuit breaker would not delay any upcoming experiments.

The setback sounds minor and does not eclipse the history the LHC team made the other day.

Police believe a nurse anesthetist may have had inappropriate sexual contact with hundreds of patients in his care.

Paul Patrick Serdula, 47, of Marietta was arrested Wednesday by Cobb County police on three counts of unlawful surveillance and eavesdropping of patients at a dental office.

But it’s what investigators found during a search of Serdula’s Forest Peak Court home that is really alarming, according to Sgt. Dana Pierce. Electronic recording devices and hundreds of videos were seized from Serdula’s home.

Although investigators haven’t looked at all of the material yet, police say they have already seen enough to believe Serdula was engaging in criminal activity while patients were under anesthesia, such as sexual battery or fondling.

“We don’t yet know the magnitude of the criminal activity he was involved in,” Pierce said Friday afternoon.

The investigation began when a woman spotted a video recording device in the bathroom at her dentist office, located in the 600 block of Galleria Parkway. She immediately called 9-1-1, Pierce said.

This is truly a WTF!? story especially when it happens in your backyard. This is when I really wish there was a hell for people like this.

WASHINGTON – The economic recovery gained traction in late fall as shoppers spent a bit more and factories bumped up production. That assessment Wednesday by the Federal Reserve marked its most upbeat view since the economy tumbled into recession two years ago.

The Fed’s new snapshot of business barometers nationwide found that conditions have generally improved since the last report in late October.

Eight of the Fed’s 12 regions surveyed reported some pickup in activity or improved conditions, the Fed said. Those regions were: Boston, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas and San Francisco.

The four other regions — Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond and Atlanta — described conditions as little changed or mixed.

The new report adds to evidence that the economy is rebounding after the worst recession since the 1930s.

I know the meme for some is to push the gloom and doom in economic news. Certain groups have gone so far as to under report or discount any positive news to fit this theme. Obviously the recovery is going to be a long slog so any good news is appreciated.

Scientists can now study 13 previously off-limits human embryonic stem cell lines using federal research dollars, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH has just approved the first set of stem cell lines that meet ethical guidelines set out back in July, after President Obama lifted previous restrictions put on embryonic stem cell research.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, expects scientists to quickly make use of the newly approved cell lines.

“I think people are champing at the bit for the opportunity to get started in exploring this area of research with federal funds,” Collins says. “We already have lots of grants, $21 million worth, that have already been approved and have just been restricted until today.”

Under the Bush administration policy, scientists could use federal funds to study only 21 stem cell lines created before August 9, 2001.

Now this is some real change I can believe in. Who’d a thunk it a real pro-life decision.

New York lawmakers rejected a bill Wednesday that would have made their state the sixth to allow gay marriage, disheartening advocates already stung by a similar decision by Maine voters just last month.

The New York measure failed by a wider-than-expected margin, falling 12 votes short in a 24-38 decision by the state Senate. The Assembly had earlier approved the bill, and Gov. David Paterson, perhaps the bill’s strongest advocate, had pledged to sign it.

New York also doesn’t allow civil unions, but has several laws, executive orders and court decisions that grant many of the rights to gays long enjoyed by married couples.

The vote comes after months of delays and arm twisting of lawmakers sympathetic to the bill but representing conservative districts. It also follows a referendum in Maine that struck down a gay marriage law before it took effect.

By far the shittiest news of the day. I just do not understand why less love in the world is better than more for these hateful people.

55 Responses so far.

Do you remember Dec. 3, 1984? A shameful day that is still on going.
The explosion at Bhopal, India of the Union Carbide chemical plant. How many died? the government says 15,000, the locals say 35,000 and counting. Two things that stick out after 25 years. 1. The ground water has never been cleaned up. People still use this water and are having many complications. As one Doctor said last night (on BBC) ” It (the poison) is now in their genes causing multiple birth defects”
2. This case is STILL in the courts, and no one has been convicted or fined. Just sad.
Here is one site you may look at for some info: http://www.bhopal.org/whathappened.html

If you are so moved there are plenty of sites detailing this disaster.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was a lab technician at the time and my lab mate was a wonderful guy from India named Suresh. Obviously he was beside himself when he talked about the news one minute angry as hell and the next on the verge of tears. It was one of the low points of my life and I questioned the career choice I had made because it was my first year out of college.

Ironically the company I worked with at the time GAF made a hostile bid to take over Union Carbide. But it was just an attempt by our CEO to make some greenmail off of Union Carbide’s horrible negligence. I left the company soon after so it did not take me long to realize that corporations were the scourge of our society. But it did help give me a moral compass to fight the environmental cause from within.

Bito, I remember when Bhopal happened. What a horrifying story that got about as much airplay here as a freeway pile-up. And only about a year and a half later was Chernobyl. When you have some time, I highly recommend this site. It’s a “motorcycle diary” by a remarkable young woman who tours the “ghost town” of the Chernobyl region taking pictures. Start with “Chernobyl, Land of the Wolves.”

j’avaz, The university in Tucson,UA, has a well known dept. on climatology. The professor, Malcolm Hughes, received a letter from Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) to not destroy any emails that pertain to his studies on climate change. Bet he is not the only one that got such a warning.

We watch the ‘Nightly Business Report’ on PBS every night, and the TARP deal was a great deal for our government, for those that have paid it back.
It was low interest rates, but our government made BIG money on those that paid the loans back.
It wasn’t a bad thing, but the MSM doesn’t tell us that.

What is up with that woman breast-feeding her 4 week old baby on an airplane and she fell asleep and the baby was smothered and died?

My gosh, what a horrible, tragic story.

I just do not know what to think.

And on a side note from my HP days --
Isn’t it wonderful on this PPOV that when you type “I think” and you don’t get the typical clique reply -- “Your first mistake was saying that you think” or something snarky like that.

Why in the world, except to look at naked women and nipples, would anyone ever blog on HP?

Or as my husband says, “Is there something wrong with looking at boobs and shaved triangles?”

When they were first doing that Hadron thing, there was fear about it sucking our universe and it would be the end of the world, and one British guy wrote that he was going to unzip and let it out because if he was going to go, it would be the best BJ he ever had in his life.

tax commissioners claim that an elaborate series of legal manoeuvres, dubbed “flip and spin” by News Corp, wrongly deprived authorities in Australia, Britain and the US of billions of dollars in capital gains tax.

And how much noise did Faux make on “not paying taxes on time” when it came to Obama’s staff?

OK, is it me, but that nurse there really looks like a knuckle dragging neanderthal…God, this guy looks really creepy.

Glad to see other positive news here, stem cell research is on the move, wonder if any pro-lifer heads have exploded yet on this one.

Very disappointed on NY rejecting the Same Sex Marriage Bill, once again the Christian Right who shout so loud about their individual freedom, hypocritically deny others theirs. I believe marriage is a civil not religious matter…many atheist and agnostics get married, what does religion have to do with it.

Was the main for HP earlier this afternoon, lots and lots of bigoted trolls posting, some where actually so bad that even HP removed them.

Not to sound catty, not for nothing the dresses these two women are wearing are hideous…but, I wouldn’t be caught dead in either one of them, the movie “27 Dresses” comes to mind. OK, yell at me now….

Amen about that creepy nurse. First thing I did was check and make sure he wasn’t in my city!

BDM — I am getting a foster greyhound this Saturday. We are bringing 18 of them up in a big truck — I think from Florida but maybe Oklahoma. Anyway, it’s a lot of work but a big kick to teach a racing greyhound about the big wide world!

I was married in black from head to toe. It was my rebellion against the RC Church for demanding that my hubby take four months of instructions before we were allowed to have a Church wedding. Only my mother got it, she giggled from the time we left the house for the Registry office, during the ceremony and later at our reception.